All That Glitters Is Not Gold
by TheKoganKid
Summary: Due to boredom on a day off from school, Benny takes Ethan upstairs to show him a magic book he had found in Grandma Weir's room. But upon knocking over another box, the boys find a fairytale book and are suddenly sucked into the world of childhood fables, and are required to be certain characters to get out. And depending on the endings of each tale, they may never leave. Bethan!


_Fairytale. _

It was a word that was generally used to express one's romantic relationship with another person, or used on a scale to measure someone's happiness. When said, people thought of love, and sunsets that bathed an entire countryside in a golden color that held as much warmth as the sun itself. They thought of magic, wands and the likes being whipped out to help whoever in need through an otherwise sticky, unsolvable situation. They thought of knights, and dragons, and damsels in distress that were normally degraded by evil stepmothers who only wanted their beauty and charm. And they thought of princesses and princes, the royal ladies usually in need of rescuing by the men on their noble white steads, and when aquiring this safety, the men were usually given sweet, cavity-worthy kisses and rings to stick on the princess' finger.

Fairytales were the stories told to children before bedtime, the ones that filled them with the hope that one day they would be as magical and wonderful as both the people inside of the fables, and the fables themselves.

He even remembered that as a kid he adored listening to his mother tell him over and over again the daring adventure of Peter Pan, jumping around on his small bed to re-enact the fighting scenes between Pan and Hook. And never did he one day think he would find more depth in a fairytale beyond the normal things about never trusting anything but your heart.

And Ethan Morgan never thought he would find the darkness in fairytales, either.

In fact, the day didn't seem dark at all. Dull, yes, but there was nothing sorrowful about that particular Friday afternoon. Him and Benny had finally gotten a day off from school, due to the teachers needing to grade their exames for the trimester, and in all honesty they had nothing to do. So they were lazing around the Weir's livingroom, slumped on the couch and absentmindedly watching _Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secret _while trying not to burst into tears from the sheer boredum they felt. Everything on the side from their shoulders to their hips were touching, both gravitating towards eachother without meaning to, and at one point Ethan had gotten so bored of just staring at the fuzzy images of Harry and Ron talking to Moaning Myrtle that his head had lolled onto Benny's shoulder and he had rested it there for about ten minuets, before the other boy had risen to his feet to use the bathroom.

But then he had returned, sitting in the same exact spot, letting the same exact movie he'd watched a million times play out on the TV screne, and after around only twenty seconds did the lack of intrest swing back.

"Beennyyy." Ethan moaned, head resting back against the brim of the couch.

"Whhaatt?" he moaned back. Benny turned to look up at Ethan, and found the sight of his friend pouting suprisingly adorable; in an annoying kind of way.

"I'm bored."

"I thought you would be jumping with joy by now." Benny replied sarcastically. "We're already two movies into an eight movie marathon. The fun's just gotten started."

"Shut up." Ethan giggled, shoving him lightly by his shoulder. "I'm being serious. There's nothing for us to do."

"Well, if I could, I'd use a spell to whip something up. But we both know how _that_ would end."

Ethan moaned again and burried his face into the crook of the couch, muttering incoherrency into the soft, mocha fabric. He was supressing the urge to curse loudly very well, every fiber of his being burning with the desire to scream just about anything into the bleak air, but he was proud to say that he held himself back in an orderly fashion.

But then Benny was suddenly sitting up straight again, his trade-mark floppy grin on his face, and the sun exploding from his eyes.

"That's it!"

"What is?" Ethan asked, cocking an eyebrow at his friend's sudden change in behavior.

"The spell!" enthuised Benny, as if it would clear everything up."

"What about the spell, Ben? I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not a wizard like you!"

Benny rolled his eyes, but the smile didn't drop; if anything, it became even more blinding than it already was.

"Did I ever tell you about the time when I went looking for Grandma's potion book for that strength potion she's always making for Jane, and found a bunch of other stuff instead?"

"No..." Ethan trailed off, probing his brain for any recollection of the sort.

"Well, when I went looking for the book, I went up to her room and searched everywhere, and when I opened up the closet I found this _huge_ box full of magic books! It was awsome!"

"Like what kind of books?" Ethan asked, his eyes now too glinting with intrigment.

"All kinds! Ones about black magic, love spells and potions, everything! There was even one where you just touch whatever's on the page and it becomes three dementional."

"Can we go check them out?" Ethan sounded breathless with excitement, and Benny could see it crystal clear.

"Sure! Grandma won't be home for few more hours, anyways."

"Let's go, then! Lead the way!" Ethan laughed. He was so happy that Benny had come up with something for them to do that he nearly burst into tears from the joy he felt.

They made their way over to the fine carpetted stairs, Benny leading with a now light-hearted Ethan moving swiftly behind him, and they jogged up the stairs together while still chattering excitedly about the books Benny had found. Ethan had always been incredibly facinated by the magic Benny was able to produce, just as the other was amazed by his premonitions of the future, and there was no exception that time as the taller of the two gabbed away about how with just a simple potion he could change who he was, just like the _Polyjuice Potion _from _Harry Potter_, and with the right spell he could automatically speak any language he wanted fluently. And as they crossed the small hallway space separating Benny and his grandmother's bedrooms, Benny going into another little tangent about something new he had found, Ethan completely forgot about the movie they'd been watching downstairs; and probably his name, too, if anyone had asked him at that moment what it was because of how engaged he was.

Usually Ethan was a little squirmish walking into the private living area of Grandma Weir, his nerves tingling sickeningly because he was paranoid that she would catch them and get mad, but this time he was so focased on Benny and his explinations that he hardly noticed the soft, floral pattern of everything around them. He didn't even blink as they shuffled together over to Grandma Weir's closet, Benny tugging it open sharply and immediatly searching around for the box he had found when up in her room last. Only when their eyes disconnected did Ethan remember exactly where he was, and why, and was genuinely suprised to find that he was calm in the older woman's bedroom, instead of ansty and nervous.

"Ah hah," Benny declared, bending down to shift through the box. "Found it!"

"Sweet." Ethan bubbled in responce.

Benny dug through the contents of the container for a moment, muttering to himself, before he found the thick black book he'd been planning to show to the other boy.

"This is the 3D book I was talking about," Benny stepped to stand beside Ethan, one arm craddling the book while the other flipped through its pages gracefully. "It has a bunch of really cool stuff in it."

"Is that the bottom of the Eifle Tower?" Ethan asked, in awe.

"Yeah." nodded Benny, his grin growing. "Touch it."

Grazing it gently, Ethan only had a second to marvle at the page before his vision was suddenly clouded over with a light haze. It wasn't the same kind of fog he saw in a vision of his; it was softer, less bold around the edges, like a thin sheet of rain. He saw the Eifle Tower before him in it's glory, the sun gleaming dully off of the black bars, and he could hear the sound of people speaking in multipul languages and china cups clinking against saucers in the backround somewhere. It lasted only a few seconds, five at the most, but it left him breathless anyways, and he was reluctant to return to the present as the vision faded away.

"That was amazing." he heaved out, blinking down in wonder at the regular picture in the book.

"It always is." Benny chuckled. He turned the page again, humming to himself when disregarding a certain page, but he stopped again when he came to a picture of an orchestra. "Touch this one." he pointed.

Ethan obliged all too willingly, and smiled to himself as the haze returned to his eyes. This time he was in a dimly lit theatre, hundreds of other people around him watching the stage in the center of the room with rapt attention, and he found multipul people on the stage with different instruments held in their hands. There was a wave from a man on a podium, and suddenly the silent air was filled with the sweet music of a violin, viola, cello, and piano ballad, the crowd swooing in time with the movement of the arms pulling bows aross strings and the pianist's upper body swaying. Again, the vision ended much too quickly for Ethan's liking, but he allowed the thought to slip away as a content sigh escaped his lips and a lazy smile quirked onto his mouth.

"Beautiful." he mused, dragging the word out.

"Sap." Benny laughed.

Ethan said nothing, but dug his elbow into Benny's side, trying and failing to keep an indenticle smile off of his face.

"I have to show you this one, though, that's really cool. Just let me find it..."

A few moment of the sound of pages flipping, the paper frictioning together, before Benny found what he wanted and he put the book closer to Ethan, who was eager to see what he would endure next.

"This one doesn't include a vision," Benny explained, ignoring the slight frown of disappointment from his friend. "But it's still 3D."

This time when Ethan reached out, he was carressing a butterfly the color of an Argentina beach, the wings a radiant blue color and the other details of it's body a black inky color. As Benny had said, he wasn't thrown into another vision, but instead the picture under his fingertips moved, as if the insect were flying, and suddenly the wings were rippling up and down and Ethan could feel the silky texture of them.

"No way!" he cried out, gasping.

"Isn't it incredible?" Benny laughed.

"Duh." Ethan said with his eyes about as big around as cookies.

He stared in amazment down at the convulsing butterfly for a few moments, saying nothing, and then he turned to look up at Benny with the same awestruck look. Benny glanced down from the butterfly up to him, a soft smile still playing at his mouth, and suddenly Ethan felt as though he couldn't look away. There was something in Benny's eyes that was holding him in place, like a magnet on kitchen appliances, and his thoughts shifted very abruptly to the taller boy next to him, the very one staring back at him; he was so lost in their gaze that he almost forgot about the butterfly he was still touching, but his fingers remained on top of the picture, stuck there just as the rest of his body was. The radiant smile on Benny's face weakened slightly, as he, too, found himself unable to look away from Ethan, and instead turned into a small open-mouthed oval of question. But he didn't say anything, same as Ethan, and instead just continued to keep the strong gaze with his friend.

A loud crash brought them out of their confusing, intimate moment, and they both jumped away from eachother with cries of startlement. Ethan immediatly assumed that it was Grandma Weir, home early from her day out and ready to shout at them, but upon closer inspection he saw that it was only a box that had fallen from within the closet next to Benny and him. The box was slightly smaller than the magic one, but still contained books, and with a shaking glance at Benny, they both bent down to pick up whatever had fallen. And out of pure curiosity, Ethan picked up one of the books and turned it over in his hand, eyes tracing over the front cover quickly.

It was a romance novel.

His eyebrows raised at the obviously sexual scene printed onto the cover of the book, his eyes widening with shock at the sight of a woman with portruding cleavage clinging heavily onto a muscular man with sunkissed skin and a lustful glint in his eyes. They were tangled in a mass of bedsheets, a few candles lit around them, and the green velvet tapestries were drawn to reveal a victorian style of decor. The title read, "_Love's Burning Touch_," by the author Karen Tarrence.

"What in the hell?" Benny swore softly; in his hands was another romance novel, this one of a couple kissing passionatly on the beach and the cover read, "_Come Soft Tides_," by Alice Hepburn.

Ethan stared at mass of books by their feet, and with a start he realized what this ment.

"Your grandma reads romance novels." he snickered.

"My grandma reads _romance novels?_" Benny half-yelled the inquire out loud, looking absolutely horrified at the very idea of such a thing.

"It's quite scandalous." Ethan grinned. "Maybe she also watches _Young And The Restless _and _As The World Turns_ in her spare time while we're at school."

"Dude, shut up!" Benny smacked Ethan lightly on the shoulder with the book in his hands, making a noise of displeasure along with it. "It's not funny!"

"It kind of is." Ethan replied, biting his lip.

"I never knew my own grandmother was another one of those late-aged sex pixies." Benny grumbled, squating down to flip over the box and shovle the rest of the books into the box. Ethan let a laugh escape, ignoring the sour look Benny sent him, and he bent down to help file the books back into the box, as well.

There was so many of them, that Ethan lost count. They were the ones you could find at a grocery store that were only a couple bucks, and Charna's Guts did Grandma Weir have _a lot_ of them. Ethan saw so many images of heterosexual couples being intimate and sexual with eachother on the covers and lame titles that he almost ran into the hallway bathroom to throw up his lunch. It was just too much... _sex_. _Everywhere._

Ethan, shuddering at the thought of facing more, looked behind himself to make sure that he had gotten all of them off of the floor. There was few, their titles corny as the others, but there was also a thick, neat book a deep plum color sitting beside them. Without looking at the box, Ethan dropped the thin romance books back into it and pulled the leather-bound book closer to him, his earlier curiosity returning slightly.

The book looked brand-new, but worn at the same time, and he thought that Grandma Weir must either use it a lot or never. On the front cover in beautiful, golden letters, read the word "_Fairytales_."

Ethan smiled fondly down at the book, the softness and elegancy of a book of fairytales making him feel better after the never-ending avalanche of sex he had just had to sort through.

"What's that?" Benny asked him, crawling across the carpet flooring to get closer to his friend.

"A fairytale book." Ethan said bemusedly, looking up to see Benny staring down at the volume in curiosity, as well.

"I've never seen this one before."

"This one?"

"Grandma was like your mom. She always read a story to me before bed. Usually they were happy ones so I wouldn't feel so bad about missing my parents."

"That's sweet." Ethan said softly.

Benny nodded slightly, his focas still mainly on the book in Ethan's lap.

"Should we open it up?" Ethan asked him.

"Sure."

Ethan looked back down at the book and carefully opened it up, admiring to himself the delicacy of the book's making. The pages were made of thin parchment, like the kind found in old historical documents, and he could vaguely make out the writing on the different pages behind eachother. He opened up to the table of contents first, scanning to see which fairytales were inside. On the first page, he saw only ten story titles written in curving black ink, but he was glad to see that they were all ones he knew.

"I remember all of those." Benny said over his shoulder, speaking what he had been thinking to himself.

"So do I." Ethan chuckled.

"What's this?" Benny asked him, pointing at a small swirl of writing at the very bottom, marked only by a small star.

Leaning closer to see it properly, Ethan read aloud, "If wished so, use the animation spell to activate the stories. But heed only at one's own risk." He looked up at Benny again, his eyes questioning. "Should we do it?"

"Why not?" Benny flashed him a cheeky grin, before waving his fingers over the book and lightly whispering the phrase, "_Pervenient ad vitam_.", faint blue sparkles erupted from the tips.

The book began to shine dully from the core, twinkling up at them, and they both were transfixed on the light beginning to erupt from the book. Ethan turned to ask Benny what it would do next, or at least his prediction, but then suddenly the book began whirring around on his hands, convulsing from his palms. And looking down, Ethan only had time to gape at the light now exploding from the binding of the volume, before some unknown pulled him forwards and he was being dragged into the cool pages of his magical childhood lands.

xXxXx

As quickly as the falling sensation had begun, it stopped, and Ethan opened his eyes with a gasp; he could tell at once that he was no longer in Grandma Weir's bedroom, or in the Weir household at all, because it looked as though he were inside of a dungeon of some sort instead of her white, floral living place. His head was spinning, making the candle light on the celing stretch and flicker slightly, and he wondered if somehow he had gone back in time where the was no such thing as electricity. Maybe Benny had gotten the spell wrong again.

_Benny_.

Ethan's dizziness was suddenly forgotten as he realized that he might be alone, and he struggled to turn his head to the side in order to search for his friend. Eventually, with much coaxing on his part, Ethan managed to look to his left and squint in the darkness for another body; but there was no need, seeing as how now a lump was squirming next to him and groaning about nothing decipherable.

"Benny?" Ethan mumbled stupidly.

"Is that you, E?" Benny asked back, the pain obvious in his voice.

"What the hell happened?"

"I have no clue. I know I did the spell right, though, so we can't pin this one on me if we're in mortal danger."

_Okay, so it wasn't Benny's fault this time_, Ethan mentally thought to himself.

"All I remember was a bright light, and then... This." Benny continued; Ethan saw the outline of his arm move as he animated his thoughts with a hand, waving at nothing in the air.

Ethan grunted in responce and decided that he should try sitting up in a vain attempt to make out where exactly they were. The task was difficult with his throbbing and head and suprisingly aching body, but after some struggling he made it, and he peered around at himself.

"Do you think we're in a dungeon?"

"It looks like that." Ethan could see Benny staggering in place as he sat up too, rubbing the back of his shaggy head with a sharp intake of breath. "Maybe we're-"

Once more, there was a sudden explosion of light, but this time coming from an uproar of fire. The two boys both turned their heads away from the source of light, eyes squeezing shut to block out the brightness, and they faintly heard the sigh of someone who was clearly female. The flames continued to ignite for a moment, crackling slightly around eachother, but then they dimmed slightly enough so that the duo could look around again without being blinded.

A woman, who look like she'd hardly brushed thirty years of age, sat upon a black ebony throne, her arms proped on the rests, and her back erect in the same direction as the chair. She had long, flowing brunette hair that spilled down her shoulders like a sleek waterfall, and she wore an elegant black dress that both hung off of her and hugged her frame; there was only a silver tiara tucked into the crown of her head, and at her throat was a rombus-shaped emerald that seemed to pulse.

"You are most certainly _not _in a dungeon," she said briskly, tilting her chin upwards. "You are in my throne room."

"Throne room? _What_?" Benny asked, the rubbing on the back of his head ceasing some.

"My throne room." the woman repeated again, slowly, as though she were talking to a child. "I am sitting on a throne, am I not? And we are in a room, all together. Therefore, you are in my throne room."

Benny grimaced at her.

"But _why _are we in your throne room? And who are you?" Ethan asked.

"I am Queen Spheria," the woman sniffed proudly. "And you are in my throne room because you asked to be brought here."

"When?"

The Queen smiled, but it held all of the kindness as the crows that pecked viciously at a harvester's corn crop.

"When your Spellmaster companion casted the animation spell."

Ethan, almost reluctantly, looked over at Benny, and saw that his friend had now turned an awful shade of white.

"So," Benny said meekly. "maybe it _was _my fault this time, then."

"Wait, so that spell brought us here?" Ethan inquired, looking back up at the Queen from his position on the floor. "I thought it would only make the story images 3D."

"Looks can be deciving." Spheria smiled again, wickedly, and curled a hand upwards towards her face in a smug sort of way.

"But we used an animation spell. It was only supposed to bring the stories to life."

"And that's exactly what it did."

"How?"

"I grow tired of your questions, child." The Queen sighed, gaze flickering tiredly to her plain, manicured nails. "Havn't you ever heard of the phrase 'Curiosity killed the cat?'"

"I wouldn't be asking so many questions if we knew exactly where we are and why we're here."

"Then allow me to explain." she looked back down at them, and her grin was just as vicious as she seemed to be. "I take it that you didn't heed my warning about your own risk? Well, that was your first mistake if you wished not to be put into this position."

Ethan said nothing, but just berated himself for letting Benny do the spell when there was obvious danger in the situation.

"But since you did cast the spell, and I must thank you for that, you are now apart of the stories, because you've animated them. Your spell allowed me to pull you into the world of fairytales, and now you are my pawns and I am free to do with you what I please. So thank you," she looked pointedly at Benny, raising her eyebrow seductively. "Spellmaster. Because I've been waiting for another round of this for decades. You've cured me of my boredum."

Ethan paled at the thought of how careless they had been. If only they hadn't been trying to cure their own bordeum, none of this would have happened.

"So what are you going to do with us now?"

"Exactly what the animation spell said it would do; bring the stories to life."

"And how exactly are planning on doing that?"

"By using you two as the main characters, of course." Queen Spheria chuckled to herself, beaming brilliantly.

Ethan and Benny looked at eachother in horror, as they suddenly realized what exactly the "pawn" part of their imprisonment meant to the Queen.

As if reading their minds, Spheria pressed on. "To get out of our contract, as you might put it, you must go through each fairytale and live it in place of whichever character I place you, and learn the moral of the story. If you don't, I'll make you repeat the tale until you get it right, or until I grow bored."

Ethan and Benny studied eachother for another moment, damning their luck, before turning to the Queen and nodding.

"I guess that's fair." Ethan said. "Since we were stupid."

"Of course it's fair, my young flower." she praised. "You're playing by my rules."

Ethan gulped, and heard Benny's frightened cry from beside him, which only added to his own terror.

"W-which fairytale are we going into first?" Ethan asked shakily.

The Queen sighed happily. "Snow White."

"That doesn't seem too bad..." Ethan amended with himself.

"Well, I don't think you'll care, anyways."

"Why?"

"Because when you two are each character, that's the only person you are. You'll remember yourself as the character once completing the story, of course, to keep a trophie of each fable, but when you're your designated character, that's the only person you are. You won't even know your true person really exists."

There was a collective silence around the room, one portion of fear, and another of pure, gloating amusement.

The Queen was suddenly on her feet then, hands raised in front of her, and the pair of boys still on the floor knew that that meant they were about to be thrown into a story together, completely unaware of reality.

"Oh, and one more thing, boys, before I send you on your way," Spheria paused for a moment, her voice low and bubbly. "I don't know if I've said this before, but I get bored easily sometimes, and I'm bored of watching the usual fairytale pairings kiss, because it's always the same."

"So what does that mean for us?" Benny questioned her, rather calmly.

She smiled. "That means you're not falling in love with princesses. You're falling in love with _eachother_."

And with another quick reminder to learn the morals of the stories, Ethan and Benny only had a breath's amount of time to look at eachother in newly found confusion before they were warped off again into one of the oldest fairytales written.

**A/U: First of all, I just randomously made up the titles "Love's Burning Touch," and "Come Soft Tides," and I'm 99.9% positive that there's no women author named Karen Tarrence or Alice Hepburn :D Second, I figured out that at least not both of Benny's parents died, because I rewatched Smells Like Trouble and finally heard Benny say that his dad was back on the dating scene. But, for as barbaric as it sounds, I'm gonna stick with the dead-parents thing because it gives me a better access for story-ideas. Sorry if that makes me a demonic person. Okay, well for starters, I'm really happy that a bunch of you liked the second chapter of Choking On Laughter. Seriously, I thought you all had abandoned that story due to my lack of activity with it, and when I got at least five new reviews for it on the publishing day, it made my entire life. So thanks to everyone to read it, and I love you all :D This is a story idea I came up with just a few days ago, and I decided to put it in motion and see what happened with it. So just let me know if you like it, and I'll keep going at a hopefully faster pace than COL -_- Thanks! Also: I got a new laptop, and for as nice as it is, I really miss Wordpad because everything like the font and page spacing was bigger, so sorry if this was short. I write short stuff on here because it seems longer than it really is.**

**Much love, **

**TheKoganKid :D**


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